On a Lost Highway

ON A LOST HIGHWAYRyan Bingham won an Academy Award with T Bone Burnett for their song “The Weary Kind,” from last year’s film Crazy Heart. This month, the singer-songwriter, photographed here in Miami, releases a new album., STYLED BY DEBORAH WATSON; HAIR PRODUCTS BY FRÉDÉRIC FEKKAI; HAIR BY DIDIER MALIGE; GROOMING BY GUCCI WESTMAN; FOR DETAILS, GO TO VF.COM/CREDITS. BINGHAM WEARS A SHIRT AND JEANS BY SIMON SPURR.

Unlike some whose careers or marriages fall apart, Ryan Bingham says things are pretty much the same since he and T Bone Burnett won for best song (“The Weary Kind,” from Crazy Heart). Here, the singer-songwriter and former rodeo bull rider talks about that award, life on the road, and his new album, the T Bone Burnett—produced Junky Star, out this month.

LISA ROBINSON:Were you really a rodeo bull rider?

RYAN BINGHAM: I grew up in New Mexico and Texas doing that. My uncle rode bulls and my grandfather was a rancher; junior rodeos were like Little League in our family.

L.R.You get categorized as ‘country,’ but your music really sounds more like Gram Parsons—style rock and roll.

R.B. We always felt we were a rock and roll band. People thought we were a country band because I wore a cowboy hat, and [while] I was raised on Willie and Waylon—and that’s a lot of where my roots are—the Stones and Zeppelin are in there, too. A lot of times people don’t listen to your music; they just see what you’re wearing and put a stamp on it. Then they come to our shows, see us play live, and it’s a whole different deal.

L.R.What was the sound you and T Bone were going for on your new album?

R.B. Just the same sound as before with my band, the Dead Horses. We spent a week working up the songs, played all of them in T Bone’s living room, and he told us to record [everything] exactly the way we played them for him. It was all recorded live; most of the songs were done in one or two takes.

L.R.The album is called Junky Star, but you don’t mean ‘junky’ as in drug addict, do you?

R.B. No, it’s like junkyard; a lot of these songs sound like they’ve been beat up for a long time. The album cover picture is a wrecked-out plane with the wings broken off; it looks like it’s flown a million miles, but there’s something special about it.

L.R.So, how did the movie and the Oscar change your life?

R.B. It’s still been life; no change really around the house or in my world. But without that movie, the kind of music we play would never have reached that broad an audience.

L.R.In Crazy Heart, you and your band perform in the bowling-alley scene. How authentic was that?

R.B. We’re a bowling-alley band. That’s what I told the director when he asked us about doing it. We’ve played bowling alleys more times than I want to count.

L.R.What’s the worst place you ever played?

R.B. We played a gig somewhere in Mississippi, in a shitty motel lounge where they had a racetrack set up and they were racing rats. In the bar. Ryan Bingham and Mice Races.

L.R.From there to wearing an Alexander McQueen tuxedo onstage at the Kodak Theatre. Did you keep the tuxedo?

R.B. No, I didn’t get to keep it. But I really don’t know where I’d wear it. Maybe for the mice races—next year.

Lisa RobinsonPrior to joining Vanity Fair in 1999, contributing editor LISA ROBINSON was a longtime music columnist for the New York Post, The New York Times Syndicate, the host of syndicated radio and cable TV shows, and edited several rock magazines.